Wasabi with tahini?
- rosemary
- 14 hours ago
- 5 min read
"Embrace the wasabi and think of it as a hot mustard."
Sue Li/New York Times
The above photograph of Chicken and celery salad with Wasabi-tahini dressing by Sue Li comes from one of my desktop calendar pages, the recipe for which and a longer introduction, can be found on the Seattle Times website.
As you probably know by now I'm not really into salads, but this one looks like a possibility - but wasabi and tahini? My first reaction was 'weird'. Why would you do that? However, now that I have rambled around on the topic a bit I'm beginning to see that it could work. I'm also beginning to see some of the possibilities of where it could come from.
When I asked the question of who began this rather unlikely combination I found no answers other than one from Google's AI. Honestly I try to avoid AI but you have to admit that sometimes it nails it. And it sort of has on this - albeit in a very non-committal way:
"There is no single, well-known individual credited with first pairing wasabi and tahini. Instead, this combination appears to be a modern culinary fusion that likely emerged from creative chefs and home cooks experimenting with ingredients from different culinary traditions" Google AI
It would have to be modern wouldn't it? Japan through the centuries was notoriously internally centred, banning virtually all interaction with the outside world. And the Middle-East is not in this case a natural trading partner. The Arabs were indeed major traders and certainly traded with India, but I am not aware of any major interest on their part in Japan.
Today, of course, Japan is hugely experimental and also hugely interested in putting their own twists on to foods from everywhere, and giving back their inventions to the rest of the world. And indeed as I rambled I found that they have their own kind of tahini - Goba dare sauce as shown in this Wasabi goma dare soba salad from This Earth, This Food which actually uses tahini. The main difference between the two sauces being that Japan roasts their sesame seeds, and the Middle-East does not. And since the Japanese also have wasabi, well then I guess the combination of the sesame and the wasabi is really not that strange after all.
Another way the combination could have come about is just as AI suggests - chefs playing around, and Sue LI, tells us that her recipe:
"was inspired by a chef who, according to his fiancée, mixes together takeout condiments — hoisin sauce, nuoc cham, sambal oelek, to name a few — and rubs it on pork or chicken for something that becomes deliciously savory, sweet and spicy."
So raid your pantries people and you may come up with the next big thing. Sue Li was sufficiently pleased with the result of her experiment to be able to say:
"Much like a jar of the best marinara sauce, this dressing has endless possibilities. Try it with tofu and celery. Use it on an egg salad or an herby pasta salad — or even a pepper Jack-heavy romaine salad. Or just tuck it into a soft potato roll, and enjoy it at a socially distanced hang."
Well I looked for those endless possiblilities, and found just a few, with salad being the dominant player and soba noodles, edamame and/or fish - especially raw tuna - very Japanese - being favourite ingredients. Somebody described their's as deconstructed sushi. So a few examples: Soba noodles with sautéed shrimp and creamy wasabi-tahini dressing - Real Wasabi; Tuna tartare with whipped tahini, seaweed salsa & wasabi peas. - Bopp and Tone/Instagram - no recipe for this, just a picture; Seared ahi salad with creamy wasabi dressing - Roasted Root; Sushi salad - Katie Cooks a Lot/Instagram; Broad bean and asparagus soba salad - Alice Zaslavsky; Summer chopped salad with citrus sesame dressing - Bill Granger/delicious.
Whilst we are still on salads, but bearing in mind Sue LI's comments about how her salad dressing could be used in other ways, I found a recipe for Tahini, ginger, lemon and wasabi sauce from the rather strangely titled Organic Beauty Award website. It was just one of several tahini-wasabi sauces - and also mayonnaises that exist out there on the web. Some were very simple - more or less just tahini and wasabi mixed together with something else like lime juice or even vinegar. Some were rather more complicated - like this one. But I guess it could be interesting - and flexible.
Veering towards the Middle-East there were also a few variations on the hummus and/or dip scene that combined the two - mostly with what I was beginning to think was the inevitable - edamame beans - Wasabi edamame hummus - Cooking for Keeps if you want to make your own, but you can also buy online Baraka Byron Bay Tahini with Edamame & Wasabi - from Baz and Shaz, although - perhaps not - it is currently sold out.
The Brits don't really seem to have caught up with this particular combination as yet. Not even Nigel who is a Japan fan, seems to have thought of this particular combination as yet.
In fact I really only found two more possibilities - not even TikTok has anything really - Wasabi-spiked baked salmon - Kerrie Ray/Taste and Ginger soy glazed squash with sesame wasabi cream - Main Street Farms
.
So is this because it's not really a good combination, or because nobody has yet created the recipe that will go viral for some strange reason?
Truth to tell I'm not really qualified to even look into this. I'm not a Japanese food fan and therefore don't really know a lot about it. To me wasabi is rather like a very strong, nose tingling horseradish rather than a mustard. And I haven't really explored the full potential of tahini. Maybe it should be one of my 'unfamiliar ingredients' that I intend to explore next year. I do throw things together a little bit, but I'm still not really adventurous enough to just go for it.
That original NYT chicken salad recipe does look quite tempting however, and maybe the salmon is worth a try. Maybe Alice Zaslavsky will continue her exploration of the pair, or maybe Ottolenghi or Nigel will come up with something wonderful. Or maybe it will just die out as a thought bubble. But isn't it good that people are having fun experimenting?
YEARS GONE BY
December 16
2024 - Nothing
2023 - Nothing
2022 - So much lettuce
2021 - Nothing
2020 - Missing
2017 - Take a piece of puff pastry
2016 - Remember cuisine minceur?
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